Posted by Climate Solutions on April 22, 2000
by Patrick Mazza
Two billion people in the developing world are without electrical service,
while dirty energy sources force many others there to live under some of
the most polluted skies in the world.
"The energy problem in developing nations is staggering," says Jim
Sullivan, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) associate
international administrator.
They are hard pressed to come up with the $60-100 billion of investment per
year needed to keep pace with growing electrical demand. The unserved must
wait many years for the electrical grid to reach them, if ever. Meanwhile,
the most rapidly growing source of greenhouse gases is developing nations.
By 2020 their emissions will surpass those of the industrial world.
"The developing world will, as things stand, mostly use coal to deliver
future supplies," solar advocate Jeremy Leggett notes. "If they do this,
there is enough fossil fuel below ground to create ruinous global
overheating and climatic catastrophe."
That most developing nations are not bound to greenhouse gas reductions
under the Kyoto climate treaty is the major obstacle to its ratification by
the U.S. Senate. At the same time, rich nations are responsible for the
overwhelming portion of human-caused greenhouse gases now in the
atmosphere, and will continue even after 2020 to emit substantially more
greenhouse gases per person.
Currently, notes presidential science advisor John Holdren, "The richest
15% of population accounts for more than half of emissions, and spreads
damage across the world."
Developing nations are more vulnerable to climate disruption than the
industrial world, because they are more reliant on natural systems, have
fewer resources to respond to disasters, and tend to be on the tropical
storm track. Since late 1998, India, Mexico, Vietnam, Honduras, Venezuela
and Mozambique have experienced devastating floods that at least foreshadow
the greenhouse world. Global warming is truly the world's greatest
environmental justice issue.
Within these multiple and interrelated crises exists a grand global
opportunity to promote development, slow down global warming and reduce the
costs of clean energy sources. The key is to enable the developing world to
leapfrog over the model of large power stations that still prevails in the
industrial world, to jump them directly to a decentralized system based on
many micropower plants, such as solar photovoltaic (PV) panels.
A parallel already exists in telecommunications, where a number of
developing nations are going right to wireless. China, Bonneville Power
Administration Vice President Terry Esvelt, has more cell phones than any
other country. "They decided they didn't need to put up the wires and
poles. Distributed generation will enable developing countries to leapfrog
the whole investment in infrastructure."
"The old concept of monolithic infrastructure is too costly and time
consuming to install," says Trace Engineering President Bill Roppenecker,
whose company makes electronics for micropower plants. "Distributed power
generation from solar is a quicker and more cost-effective solution."
Solar PV also replaces fuel, particularly costly to transport to remote
regions. USAID case studies in which PV replaced diesel for livestock water
pumping showed PV costs lower after 2 years at one Mexican ranch and 6
years at another.
PV is already the cheapest power provider in much of the planet's sunny
south. Southern California Edison studies have shown a developing world
market for PV too big to be quantified.
Nonetheless, barriers are substantial. Up-front costs can be higher
compared with current sources such as diesel. Financing that would let
people spread costs over several years is hard to find. A marketing
infrastructure including local solar businesses and credit sources must be
constructed. Awareness is also lacking.
"Many people don't know they have a renewable option," says Andre Verani,
international program coordinator for Enersol, a solar company that works
in the developing world. Needed is "vision espoused by political leaders."
"The U.S. should be playing a leadership role," Holdren says. "We are not
doing it in an adequate way."
The demands of global equity and the urgent need to stabilize the climate
call for a dramatic increase in assistance by industrial nations for clean
electrification of the developing world. This would also have significant
economic benefits for all countries. The richer nations would find new
export markets, while the growing PV market would yield economies of scale
that bring down prices.
"There must be a global effort to accelerate the growth of this vital
market," Leggett says.
If this grand opportunity is seized, it will be one of the 21st century's
great win-wins. It will yield improved lives for people around the world,
and vastly improve the odds for re-stabilizing the climate, which would be
vanishingly small without full participation by the billions of the
developing world.
Patrick Mazza is staff writer-researcher for Climate Solutions. This article
is excerpted from Climate Solutions' upcoming report, Accelerating the Clean
Energy Revolution: How the Northwest Can Lead.
For more information, please contact:
Climate Solutions
(a project of Earth Island Institute)
610 4th Ave. E
Olympia, WA 98501-1113
Phone: (360) 352-1763
Fax: (360) 943-4977
E-mail: rhys@climatesolutions.org
Web: http://www.climatesolutions.org
